Jackson Jurors to Hear Old Allegations

Previous Alleged Victim May Testify

Michael Jackson gestures to his fans as he arrives at the Santa Barbara County Courthouse. (Phil Klein - Reuters)

SANTA MARIA, Calif., March 28 -- The judge in the Michael Jackson child molestation trial agreed Monday to let the jury hear allegations that the pop star engaged in sexual and other inappropriate activity with five other boys, including former child star Macaulay Culkin and a boy who reportedly received more than $20 million from Jackson in a 1993 out-of-court settlement.

Prosecutors pushed for the decision in order to make the case that Jackson's alleged molestation of the Los Angeles boy at the center of the current charges was part of a long-term pattern of misconduct with children.

They announced plans to bring only one of the previous alleged victims to the stand -- the son of a maid at Jackson's Neverland Ranch who accused the entertainer of molesting him in 1990 and later received $2.4 million from him in an out-of-court settlement. However, prosecutors said they will call witnesses to testify they saw Jackson groping or sharing beds with four other young boys over the past couple of decades.

Jackson was never arrested or charged in any of the previous alleged incidents. Though discussion of what is known as past "bad acts" is generally off-limits in criminal trials, a controversial California law allows judges to admit such evidence in cases involving sexual offenses.

Legal experts said the ruling is a major blow to Jackson's defense, which has sought to portray the current accusations as a trumped-up attempt by the boy's family to extort money from the multimillionaire performer.

"It dramatically increases the chances of conviction," said Laurie L. Levenson, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. "When more people make the accusation, you tend to believe it's true. The case they have to fight now is whether Michael Jackson is a serial molester, not whether there's one family targeting him unfairly."

Jackson attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. pleaded with Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Rodney S. Melville to keep testimony about unrelated cases out of the trial, calling the evidence unfair and "highly inflammatory." He also warned that he would conduct a "mini trial" to counter each old allegation brought forward by the prosecution -- raising the possibility that the larger trial could grow well beyond the anticipated four to five months.

Mesereau also noted that three of the young men in question -- including Culkin -- have denied that anything inappropriate happened with Jackson.

But Melville agreed to hear evidence in the five alleged cases that might show Jackson committing sexual offenses or "grooming activity" leading to possible sexual abuse. He declined to allow testimony about cases involving two other boys, noting that no sexual behavior was claimed to have been observed.

Jackson is charged with molesting the Los Angeles boy in early 2003, when the former cancer patient was 13 and a regular guest at Neverland. He is also charged with giving alcohol to minors to aid the commission of a felony and with conspiring to keep the boy's family from leaving his estate.

If found guilty, he could face as much as 20 years in prison.

Melville ruled that the jury will hear testimony from one alleged victim and eight people who Santa Barbara County District Attorney Thomas Sneddon said were witnesses to Jackson's alleged sexual behavior with the four other boys.

Among the alleged activity, Sneddon said, was "kissing and hugging and the insertion of the defendant's hands" into the boys' pants. In one incident, he said, a witness saw a child in bed with Jackson, their underpants lying next to the bed. In another, a witness saw Jackson licking the head of a child.

"The conduct is very, very similar, if not identical in many instances" to what Jackson's current accuser alleges, Sneddon said.

But Sneddon cited only one of the alleged victims as likely to take the stand against Jackson. It was unclear Monday whether the other alleged victims have been subpoenaed.

Raymond Chandler, the uncle of the young man who received the 1993 settlement from Jackson, said in an interview on NBC's "Today" show Monday morning that his nephew had left the country to avoid testifying because he does not wish to have his life further exposed to the public. Santa Barbara County officials spent months investigating his claims of abuse but were forced to drop the case when the boy refused to cooperate.

Culkin, who rocketed to fame as a 10-year-old in the hit movie "Home Alone," said in a televised interview last year that nothing inappropriate ever happened in his close friendship with Jackson. Culkin spokeswoman Michelle Bega said the actor "is not involved with the proceedings at this time and we do not expect that to change."

Legal experts said there would be nothing to stop Jackson's attorneys from trying to subpoena the three young men who have denied any abuse.

"If the defense could get some of the past incidents to be refuted by the alleged victims, it would be very powerful," said Erwin Chemerinsky, an expert in criminal law at Duke University Law School. However, under California law, a victim of a sex crime cannot be compelled to testify.

Melville also ruled that prosecutors can bring forward evidence of the two multimillion-dollar settlements Jackson reached with his former accusers, though he said the jury may not be told the dollar amounts.

The decade-old law that allows evidence of old allegations has been roundly criticized by defense attorneys and others who say it robs alleged sex offenders of the rights afforded other defendants.

Prosecutors and lawmakers, though, have justified the provision by arguing that sex offenders are a different kind of criminal -- ones with a deeply rooted compulsion to rape or molest again. Only a handful of other states have a statute as broad as California's, though prior evidence is also admissible in sex crimes prosecuted in federal courts. The California Supreme Court has upheld the provision, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of it.

Stan Goldman, another Loyola law professor, said the admission of the prior evidence could help the prosecution overcome doubts jurors may have about the credibility of the alleged victim, who was shown under cross-examination to have confused dates and times and given conflicting accounts.

"They've turned a relatively weak case into a relatively strong case," Goldman said.

Later in the day, jurors heard testimony from comedian George Lopez, star of the ABC sitcom bearing his name, who met Jackson's accuser and his siblings at a Hollywood comedy camp for underprivileged kids in 1999.

Defense attorneys had sought to argue that Lopez was one of the celebrities that the accuser's family attempted to hustle for money, noting an incident in which they claimed to have lost $300 at Lopez's home. But prosecutors called the comedian to show that the boy's father -- now divorced from his mother -- was the instigator of any such scams.

Lopez testified he was enamored of the children and acted as a mentor to them. When he visited the boy in the hospital after he was diagnosed with cancer, the boy's father would often hint at his lack of finances, prompting Lopez to offer him gas and food money.

The comedian and his wife, Ann, testified that their relationship with the family changed after the children met Jackson, who would call the boy at his hospital room late at night and at one point gave the boy's family a truck. "It was over the top. Our friendship to [the boy] wasn't as important as them being at Neverland," said Ann Lopez.

While planning a comedy fundraiser for the boy, Ann Lopez became suspicious of the father's preoccupation with the amount of money to be raised. When she asked him to provide bills and the names of creditors so they could be paid off, he said he would just take the cash. When she told him that wasn't how it would work, Lopez said he cursed at her. After that, she said, she and her husband severed ties with the family.

Amy Argetsinger reported from Los Angeles.